“Mother! What you doing?”
Her bodice was open and she was squeezing her breasts; long thin streams of milk spurted into the fire with a plunging noise.
“Weaning your little sister,” laughed mother. She took his inquisitive face and pressed it against the delicate warmth of her bosom, and he forgot the dead birds behind him.
“Let me do it, mother,” he cried, and doing so he discovered the throb of the heart in his mother’s breast. Wonderful it was for him to experience it, although she could not explain it to him.
“Why does it do that?”
“If it did not beat, little son, I should die and the Holy Father would take me from you.”
“God?”
She nodded. He put his hand upon his own breast. “Oh feel it, Mother!” he cried. Mother unbuttoned his little coat and felt the gentle tick tick with her warm palm.
“Beautiful!” she said.
“Is it a good one?”